Public Address | Real Timeshttp://publicaddress.net/system/real-times/
The Documentary Channel blog and forum, with The Doctor.]]>en-usCopyright (c) 2016 Public AddressCamilla Speaks!http://publicaddress.net/system/real-times/camilla-speaks/
You probably didn't see Julian and Camilla's World Odyssey first time around. This is because, despite being bloody good, New Zealand-made and not yer usual travel show, it was consigned by TVNZ to deadly weekday afternoon timeslots (because all the hipsters are glued to the telly at 1pm on a Thursday). It's back with a better bunch of slots from Wednesday*, and to celebrate, we asked producer-presenter Camilla Andersen to write a little something for Real Times ...

Julian and Camilla’s World Odyssey is a very real travel series. It is not a holiday series with slo-mo spa shots of washed up boob jobs or ear to ear grinning presenters sipping sticky. Julian and I could not be “presenters” as he is not hot enough and I am not stupid enough. There are no sharks or nazi’s but there are plenty of local characters, and not just the pool attendants and safari guides. The series is a real journey, an odyssey, not a week’s dip into the best hotel rooms and duty free shops. We start on Kuta beach in Bali and end up…

]]>Mon, 20 Nov 2006 09:26:00 +1300http://publicaddress.net/system/real-times/camilla-speaks/Nixon and Maohttp://publicaddress.net/system/real-times/nixon-and-mao/
There's a lot of BBC, a couple of venerable political films (about Mao and Nixon respectively) worth catching, and some Sir Edmund Hillary action in the Documentary Channel's January lineup.

The shades of autism are almost inevitably bettered rendered by family than by medical professionals, and that's the case with The Autism Puzzle (9pm Jan 15), a documentary made for BBC4 by Saskia Baron, whose brother Timothy was born profoundly autistic in 1961, a time when the condition was barely recognised, let alone catered for in society.

Baron's father Michael jointly founded the National Autistic Society the year after Timothy was born. Her documentary looks at both the history of autism and the latest experimental research on its nature.

Another BBC documentary, Race for Everest, gets a Sunday Premiere showing at 9pm on Sunday January 7, followed by screenings through the month. Sir Ed, naturally, appears as himself (he has a surprisingly long CV on IMDB, including two appearances on What's My Line?).

Remember the Ya-ba panic? The domestic P plague has rather robbed the news value from other Asian amphetamines, but it was the MacIntyre Investigates programme on "crazy medicine" that first got the speed boom into the headlines.…

]]>Wed, 27 Dec 2006 11:35:00 +1300http://publicaddress.net/system/real-times/nixon-and-mao/Digging for Jesushttp://publicaddress.net/system/real-times/digging-for-jesus/
Britain's vogue for public debate as the smart evening out shows no sign of slackening. A couple of years ago, it would have been hard to imagine a debate about the role and merit of religion not only selling out months in advance, but "due to unprecedented demand for tickets", moving to a larger venue and selling that out too.

The affirmative team – Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Professor A.C. Grayling – certainly has pulling power, but the team arguing against the motion will also hold some interest for Documentary Channel viewers. Alongside Rabbi Julia Neuberger and Professor Roger Scruton is Nigel Spivey, Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, a classical art and archaeology expert who came to public attention via Digging For Jesus, which screens, tidily enough, on Christmas Eve (10pm) on the Documentary Channel.

In the programme, which debuted last Christmas on Britain's ITV, Spivey examines the top 10 archaeological sites offering evidence that Jesus Christ did indeed walk the earth, and finding what…

]]>Tue, 19 Dec 2006 09:24:00 +1300http://publicaddress.net/system/real-times/digging-for-jesus/Touch the Slyhttp://publicaddress.net/system/real-times/touch-the-sly/
Dutch director Water Stokman's Let Me Have It All, a road-movie documentary following his search for the crazy, brilliant funk president Sly Stone, gets a screening on the Documentary Channel at 10pm tonight.

Stokman's award-winning directorial debut was made in 1993, six years after Sly's last live performance, and it would be a full 13 years later before Sly would get back on stage, to be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February of this year. A tribute album, Different Strokes By Different Folks, featuring The Roots, Black Eyed Peas, Steve Tyler and others, was released at the same time.

The Washington Post ran a backgrounder as rumours of Sly's Grammy appearance spread earlier this year.

There's an official (ie: Sony BMG) Sly website and a fan-run MySpace page, which includes a link to buy the catalogue at the iTunes Store (don't bother with the New Zealand store – like most things of interest, it ain't there). And, naturally, there's a solid Wikipedia entry.

]]>Tue, 12 Dec 2006 09:09:00 +1300http://publicaddress.net/system/real-times/touch-the-sly/Ewan's swollen member, and other taleshttp://publicaddress.net/system/real-times/ewans-swollen-member-and-other-tales/
This month's Skywatch features a smouldering cover shot of Ewan McGregor, on occasion of Return of the Sith reaching the small screen. But the actor features in a more interesting programme – or at least one you haven't already seen – from this Sunday night.

The Documentary Channel's 9pm premiere slot on Sunday hosts the first episode of Long Way Round, the seven-part story (moving to 8pm Sundays thereafter) of a motorcycle journey from London to New York – via Western and Central Europe, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Siberia and Canada – undertaken by McGregor and his friend and sometime actor Charley Boorman, to raise money for an awareness of the work of UNICEF.

The IMDB entry for the series is also comprehensive, and includes fan discussion about the music used, which includes Orbital, Massive Attack, Radiohead and Stereophonics, with the last group providing the title…

]]>Fri, 01 Dec 2006 09:21:00 +1300http://publicaddress.net/system/real-times/ewans-swollen-member-and-other-tales/Open for Businesshttp://publicaddress.net/system/real-times/open-for-business/
I'm the Doctor. And I love documentaries. Not the kind of ninny crap that too often passes for documentary programming in free-to-air prime time, but the kind you usually have to BitTorrent because there's zero prospect of them being shown here, at least in any reasonable timeslot.

Which is why I'm encouraged by the looming launch (Sunday November 5, with a launch lig tonight, Friday) of the Documentary Channel. It's not free-to-air, but it is "basic tier" on Sky, which means every Sky customer gets it, and it is programmed in New Zealand "for New Zealanders", as they say.

So what is it offering? Well, it's not all gold, of course: old episodes of Piha Rescue pad out the schedules, along with Singles, "an observational series that follows single people looking for love." But the hit-rate still looks a lot better than that of the existing factual channels.

Schedules are arranged in thematic strands: a regular investigative slot, a time for shock-docs and crime and court strands (although I fear I've seen all the JonBenet Ramsey I need to see). A Premiere of the Week will screen every Sunday at 9pm, and 9pm Wednesdays is the World View slot, which…

]]>Wed, 01 Nov 2006 13:51:00 +1300http://publicaddress.net/system/real-times/open-for-business/Gettin' large at the launchhttp://publicaddress.net/system/real-times/gettin-large-at-the-launch/
I wasn't too sure about the little white tablets they gave us in the goodie bags, but Matthew Hooton told me I'd be a pussy if I didn't neck at least half a dozen. After watching a film about sharks eating Nazis for half an hour, I had to be outside, where something made me look up.

David Slack (who doesn't do drugs but becomes adventurous under the influence of wine) was free-climbing the front of the building. (I actually saw two of him climbing the building in perefect unison, but the laws of physics dictate that two instances of Slack may not occur in the same space, so I put that down to double vision.) He was singing.

"Sly and the Family Stone," observed Graeme Hill. "Nice."

I turned around to ask Hooton how he was getting on, but at just that moment he was taken out in a flying tackle. The Prime Minister got up cackling and ostentatiously dusting off her hands. It's nice to see her smiling again.

After the DPS guy had helped Hooton to his feet, I asked if perhaps things weren't going a bit far.